Any Road Will Get You There
by Crystal Allen
Summary: A series of unconnected short stories, some romantic, some platonic, all Drakken and Shego, all the time.
1. GoGo

**Disclaimer and AN: **I do not own Kim Possible. I'm just trying to get to know Drakken and Shego better in preparation for a longer project, So I'm writing them into some short stories. To start us off, a little slice-of-life AU.

* * *

The line to the counter looked unbearably long from all the way at the end.

Dweeby Drew Lipsky was shouldered aside so roughly that he nearly dropped the bottle of…whatever it was that he had picked from the shelf at random. He was sixteen and he'd never been in a liquor store before, and all the bottles looked alike. _"Everclear' _read the one he'd chosen. But what _was_ it?

He was so depressed that he almost didn't mind being cut in front of in line. That was the kind of day it had been, and the kind of night it was shaping up to be.

But he was also angry enough to mind _everything _a hundred times more on this infuriating, humiliating day, and so he gave the girl now standing in what was _his _rightful place in line a violently indignant tap on the shoulder.

And then he saw who she was, and wished that he hadn't.

Oops.

Should he run? Maybe he should run.

But he'd always done badly in high school pacer tests, so he probably wouldn't get very far. Maybe if he reached his house, he could lock the door and just never come out again, which was sort of what he'd been planning to do anyway.

Maybe he could move to Canada. Say, tomorrow?

Alright, so, fine, there was a good chance he was overreacting. He'd never actually met her before tonight. She'd never so much as spoken to him, although they had two classes together. She had nothing against him, per say. They ran with different crowds. Well, _she _ran with a crowd. Drew trailed along _behind _all the crowds.

She was the senior class vice president's hot sister, she knew where to get fake IDs for all her friends, she'd been suspended twice for getting into fights with that one cheerleader. And because, despite her age, she'd gotten a job as a go-go dancer in a 'twenty-one and over' club, that's what everyone called her.

GoGo.

Drew had only a fuzzy idea what a go-go dancer actually was, but rumor had it that she'd punched out the last guy who asked if she was a stripper, so it probably wasn't all that bad.

She turned around quickly, annoyed, to fix long-lashed, warningly slanted eyes on him.

"I know you," she said.

Drew's mouth dried up.

"You're Drew. Dweeby Drew from fifth period trig."

And his stomach dropped like a stone.

"…and second period econ," he mumbled. "…and 'C' lunch."

Her eyes flicked down and back up. "Deadly," she said.

"_What? _What is?"

"Everclear." Her lips – very dark – began to curl. "You knew that, right?"

"Of _course,_" Drew rallied as the line shifted forward. He adjusted his glasses and set his dry mouth in a frown.

"Uh-huh." Her voice was blunt. "Well, aren't we a high roller."

"_Always," _he said, and then paused in awe at himself.

GoGo shifted two six-packs of something onto one hip, and gave him a grin that he never expected to see so close up. "No foolin'." She lowered burnished green lids above the long lashes. "Dweeby Drew's got secrets too," she mocked with ease.

Drew's tiny victory fizzled out of him, but he'd had a _long_ day, and he set his jaw. "Don't make fun of me."

GoGo's grin faded into a line. She looked dully surprised, but shrugged, and turned her back on him. Drew stood quietly for a moment.

It wasn't…it wasn't enough.

He gave her another brisk tap on the shoulder, and this time when she turned, her impatience made her green eyes into slits.

"You butted in front of me," said Drew the High Roller, throwing caution and the high school hierarchy to the wind. "No cuts in line."

He had a split-second urge to push past her, but proper fear of someone that pretty making _that _face held him back.

"Where do you think we are?" she asked him. "In the cafeteria lunch line? I've got places to be, Dweeby Drew. And you'll never get to taste that Everclear, because you won't get farther than the counter. I know, because the only believable IDs in our school are the ones that _I _made. And I _know_ I didn't give one to _you._"

He hadn't really thought this through very well.

Of course this wouldn't work. Not for him. For GoGo, and kids like her? Sure. But not for him.

"I was…" he started. "I was…"

"You were, you were?" GoGo mimicked. "You were what?"

"I was _here _first," he said. He hadn't said it since _middle _school. Maybe. And even back then it always sounded lame.

GoGo apparently thought so, too. "Too bad!" she laughed. She gave him one more slow, burnished look from head to toe to Everclear, and she gave a small fake sigh. "That's pathetic."

Drew Lipsky squared his thin, round shoulders. He plunked his unattainable bottle of mystery liquor straight down on the floor and looked GoGo plain in the face.

"_You're _underage!" He trumpeted for all to hear. And people turned, and GoGo balked. "And you're wearing too much makeup!" Her mouth dropped open.

Drew bolted.

Out the door and three streets over, and he was home, and he was panting, and his chest was burning.

Maybe he _would _move to Canada.

He'd talk to mother about it in the morning.

* * *

It turned out that he couldn't, after all, move away to Canada, but it hadn't been for lack of trying.

Monday morning he went to school with shoulders hunched, keeping a watchful eye out for any one of the many, many classmates he hated – GoGo now included in that number.

And he did see her, of course, but she never so much as looked in his direction. Nothing had changed. Nothing, for Dweeby Drew, ever really changed.

Except for when he found a bottle of Everclear standing proudly in his locker after the last bell rang. There was nothing with it; no note, or anything. Just the bottle.

But the bottle was enough.

Drew stuffed it into his backpack, clutching it all the bus ride home, and when he had shouted hello to his mother and was safe behind his bedroom door, he took the bottle out and cleared a place for it on his dresser, where it stood like a hard-earned trophy.

Drew stood and looked at it.

And looked at it.

And thought, and thought, and thought about black lipstick, and long lashes, and green eyeshadow.

And GoGo.


	2. Winners

**AN: **Takes place sort of semi-during-right after 'Graduation pt. 2', after the big showdown but before the award ceremony. For the first two drafts of this I was trying to make it really mellow and romantic. Only it didn't work, because Drakken and Shego aren't mellow or romantic people. Like, at all. So here's this, instead.

* * *

It was late and very dark, and Drakken thought she was asleep. Shego never had any trouble falling asleep. Hundreds of his flowers trailed down the cliffside to the beach, where the waves murmured and roared at him. He lay back to back with Shego in the hovercar, under the thin spare blankets, with the thin spare pillows beneath their heads. The new lair was a ruin now, but they'd been tired, and they had nowhere else to go.

Drakken couldn't sleep. He was drained, frightened, happy, and his brain was surging as though driven by electric currents. They were parked in the sand dunes far up on the beach, still wearing the clothes they'd put on yesterday morning. And they had never slept so close to each other before, not ever. Her presence at his back sent warmth curling over every part of him.

That warmth was ten times more worrying than the fact that he might be permanently mutated, and a thousand times more important than the fact that he'd saved the world earlier that day.

Shego, her back pressed against his, was breathing deeply and evenly, and Drakken wished the ocean would stop making so much noise, so he could hear her. He fidgeted now and then, just to make sure, sort of, that she was still there. He wanted to turn over, but he didn't want to lose that warmth, so he stayed as he was.

The scents of the sea and of flowers mingled in a heavy haze. Drakken breathed it in as his memories of the day, quick-moving, ran together like watercolors. He'd won.

He'd _won._

He shot straight up like an arrow, shaking the whole hovercar.

"SHEGO!"

"_What, _oh my god, _what? _She jolted up next to him, shocked right out of sleep.

"Shego, we _won," _he said.

Her eyes were sleepily bloodshot; her mouth in the dark was a wry black slash across her face. She said, "Wake me up again and I'll knock you unconscious," and she flung herself back down on her pillow.

Big bright marigold petals popped out to frame Drakken's face like a ridiculous lion's mane, and as he impatiently tugged them out, he knew he had it _bad._

He dozed fitfully for hours after that, sleeping and waking, too bone-tired to sleep soundly, too achy on the reclined seat of the hovercar.

"Shego," he whispered.

Nothing.

"_Shego."_

"Mmmm." She shifted minutely.

"The sun's coming up," he whispered.

"Mmmm."

"Just look at the _ocean_," he whispered.

"Mmm."

"I think we should date," he whispered.

"What?" _That _got her eyes open. She clawed her unruly hair up off her face and glared at him with exhaustion which still managed to seem sarcastic.

He asked, "Don't you think so?"

"Not right _now,"_ she deadpanned.

"Come with me and watch the sun come up, Shego."

"Are you serious?"

"It's so romantic, look!"

"_Uuggh." _She scrubbed at her eyes, childlike. "No way. Sleep."

"But _Shego,"_

_"Sleep,"_ she ordered, "or I will _make_ you."

"Well, _I'm _going to watch the sunrise," he huffed, hopping rather stiffly out of the hovercar.

"You do that," she answered shortly, pulling her blanket up to her chin.

Drakken walked alone down the beach to nearly the edge of the ocean and stood with his hands behind his back, feeling uncommonly good about himself. No big yellow petals this time, but a single vine lazily slithered out from beneath his collar to face the light.

"Well," he said to it, smiling in mild satisfaction, "she didn't exactly say _no, _did she?"

The flower seemed to agree.

Drakken sat and leaned back on his hands, happy. A _winner. _A winner for the wrong side, but whatever. Just a detail.

A _whump _right next to him made Drakken jump, as first a pillow then a blanket landed in the sand, and Shego rolled herself into the blanket and curled up in a ball.

"You are _so annoying," _she growled, her eyes glued shut.

The sun spread out to gleam, diamondlike, on the water.

"Happy first date, Shego," Drakken said.

All Shego could do was groan laboriously.

…But it still wasn't a '_no'. _


	3. Beginnings

_**Beginnings**_

* * *

He is, if he says so himself, a well-established criminal.

He's ambitious! He's confident! He's the maddest doctor around.

Really, he is. He has the laugh and the lab coat to prove it.

He's got his own private Caribbean island and he's got the madly inventive genius that can only stem from a lifetime's share of petty ridicule. It's a surefire recipe for glory. He's a very important man, and one day he's going to rule the world. From the forests and the waterfalls to the cities and the mountains, from the highways and bus stops to the country music stations, he is going to rule the world. It has never occurred to him to aim for anything less.

So he's condescending to her, at first. It's important to establish right away which one of them is the important one. And she's all mouth, all skepticism, all snide formalities and even snide-er hair-flipping. How does he know that she can back up anything she says? She says plenty. She snickers and rolls her eyes and refuses to give her real name.

_No, no, too young, _flashes in black and green neon in Drakken's head. Too young, too disrespectful, and too… too…

Well.

Well, he wants a sidekick, but he'd envisioned a fierce yet obedient drone – like a henchman, but more, ehhh, competent, yes – and presumably, he admits to himself, _male. _Shego is not at all what he had in mind. Fierce she may be, but _male_ she definitely is not. Right at this moment, he doesn't think he's ever seen anyone more female than Shego – and therein lies the dilemma.

Shego is _sexy. _She's got big green eyes and thick glossy hair and legs so long he feels like a noir narrator should be writing whole paragraphs about them. She may have even hired a jazz trumpet player to accompany her entrance; he's really not sure where that music was coming from.

There's the rub, though. 'Young' and 'Sexy' were not listed as requirements in his ad. He's thinking of putting a list of undesirable traits, including 'youth' and 'excessive hotness' into his next ad. (And there will have to be another ad, because there's no way he can hire this girl, this twenty-something amateur.) And anyway, she's rude. She's unprofessional. He doesn't like her.

But.

Then he finds that in the course of their interview and lair tour she has stolen his wallet, snapped pictures of the numbers on all three of his credit cards, (which would maybe have been disastrous if he weren't already overdrawn) located the four hidden vaults in the walls and floor and removed the padlocks from them without his noticing. (She would probably have stolen the money, too, had there been any to take.)

Then he finds out that she's wanted in nine countries – in some for normal crimes like theft and embezzlement – but in others for things like the contrived bankruptcy of several newspaper companies, a line of faulty airport metal detectors, and an insurance fraud case involving toxic hair-care products and a very unfortunate wedding party.

She knows martial arts methods that he can't even pronounce. She has a legitimate Bachelor's degree in Education and Child Development. She has a lust (_bad word, erase it, try 'enthusiasm'_ _instead) _for evil and chaos that he's only ever seen in… himself.

And.

She's got _power. _She's got the bite to back up the bark. Hell, she's got the snap of a cobra to back up the roar of a jungle cat. There are sharp black claws in the tips of her gloves; she holds out her hands with a grin and they spark, they flare, they burn.

Why she wants to be his sidekick, he's not sure. He wonders what she could possibly need from him… and she must need something; villainous types always do. Drakken just can't figure out what it is.

But upon reviewing her résumé he pinpoints, in a rare and satisfying moment of clarity, the things that Shego lacks. For all her talents, Shego has no goals; for all her abilities, Shego has no purpose. For all her power, Shego has no ambition… and fortunately, ambition is one thing that Drakken has in great store.

He knows he'd be a fool not to take her; to let some other villain snatch her up and beat him to every valuable target, let this master thief out of his sight where she could be hired by that lunatic, Killigan – or worse, _Dementor._

Never.

He calls her back to the lair the very next morning, and he condescends to hire her.

* * *

_My God_,_ this man is a loser, _she thinks. The instant she meets him she has a sudden vision of a scrawny blue kid with his boxer shorts being yanked halfway up his butt. She bets it happened, too. If he'd been at school with her she'd have been blackmailing him out of his homework and pocket change already.

He's somewhere in his late thirties, probably; maybe forty, complete with midlife crisis ponytail and an obviously overcompensating 'secret' lair, full of half-finished electronic crap that she's fairly certain could blow if she so much as looks at it wrong. Other than that, it's drab and empty and smells like a Home Depot.

He's blustering and bragging and oblivious to how socially inept he sounds. One of those geeks who spends _way _too much time alone, who just won't shut up and has no filter, no idea how stupid they sound when they're trying to be so smart. This guy doesn't walk, he marches, and he doesn't talk, he emotes like he's on a stage and she's the only shmuck dumb enough to be in the audience. _Sing out, Louise_!

He's not a real doctor, and the name 'Drakken' is so obviously a sort of grasping attempt at street-cred and intimidation. Well, she's not buying it.

Plus, he's got a weird little nose that's somewhere between a hook nose and a snub nose and a pug nose, which is not a generous thought on her part, but hey, if he wanted someone nice he shouldn't have advertised for an evil sidekick.

He's frustrating, this self-acclaimed 'Mad Scientist'. He's got the balls to talk down to her, which is annoying, and he's got the nerve _not _to look immediately impressed by her résumé, which is irritating, and not once – not even once – has he mistaken her chest for her eyes, or tried to sneak a peek around back.

Which isn't, she admits, a bad thing. Kinda nice, even. Really nice. But… no one's ever not bothered to at least _try _to check her out. What, like this dork gets to meet women all the time? Yeah, she doesn't think so. It's not nice, it's insulting.

Please. Like she has any use for _nice._

He wants to take over the world, this guy. Real original. Really thinking outside the box, there, chief.

But she's applied to help him do it. She doesn't really think twice about what'll happen if they succeed, or what it means to be a mad scientist's assistant, or how often she'll actually have to be around this spaz. Not that much, probably. How often could a mad scientist actually _need_ a sidekick?

Whatever. She knew this job was in the bag as soon as she gave him back his wallet. If she doesn't like it, or if it turns out that she can't stand big bad ol' Dr. D, she'll split. No harm, no foul, one more job to add to the villainous résumé.

And she is _so _ready to be a villain. A real villain, not just an international prankster and petty thief with a past too pure to mention. Villainy is a thrill. It feels good, feels great. Feels right.

She's hired.


End file.
